He hasn't spoken since. But he hasn't left, either.
Lily sits beside me in a booster seat, wearing the purple star dress we bought on our shopping trip. She's explaining to Valentino—very seriously—why Sir Floppington needs his own chair at the table.
"He helped Nico feel better," she says, as if this explains everything. "He's a hero bunny."
Valentino, to his credit, nods solemnly. "A hero bunny deserves a seat of honor."
Nico's hand finds my thigh under the table. His grip is warm, possessive, grounding. The wound on his chest is healing—he'll have another scar to add to his collection—but he's alive.
After the hospital, after he woke up and I told him I loved him and he said it back in that gruff, awkward way of his, I knew what I had to do. I went home to our cramped apartment and sat Lily down on our couch.
"Baby girl," I said, "how would you feel about living somewhere else?"
Her eyes went wide. "The castle?"
I laughed despite myself. "Yeah. The castle."
She didn't even hesitate. "With Nico? And Vittoria? And the bunnies?"
"All of them."
"Forever?"
The hope in her voice cracked something open in my chest. "Forever."
She threw her arms around my neck so hard she almost knocked me over. And that was that.
Sometimes I wonder why she doesn't ask about Jack. Her father. The man who was supposed to love her unconditionally but couldn't even bother to fight for her when it mattered.
I brought it up to Nico once, late at night, when we were tangled together in his bed and I couldn't shut off my brain.
"She never mentions him," I whispered. "Doesn't she miss him? Shouldn't she miss him?"
Nico was quiet for a long moment. His fingers traced lazy patterns on my bare shoulder.
"Kids know," he finally said. "They know who shows up and who doesn't. Who makes them feel safe and who makes them feel small." His voice was rough, matter-of-fact. "She's not asking because there's nothing to ask about. He made his choice. She gets it."
I wanted to insist that a four-year-old couldn't possibly understand the complexities of adult relationships and abandonment.
But then I thought about how Lily gravitates toward Nico. How she climbs into his lap without asking. How she showed him her drawings and told him secrets and trusted him immediately, instinctively, in a way she never trusted Jack.
Kids know.
Yeah. Maybe they do.
"Pass the bread," Vittoria demands, snapping me back to the present.
Lorenzo hands it over with an eye roll. "You've had three already."
"I'm a growing girl."
"You're twenty-three."
"Still growing. Emotionally." She tears off a chunk and grins at him. "Unlike some people at this table."
Sophia snorts into her wine.
The food is incredible. Giulia's lasagna, Aria's roasted vegetables, fresh bread that's still warm from the oven. Conversation flows around me, loud and overlapping and occasionally in Italian when someone forgets I'm still learning.
